Catfish (Barron's Complete Pet Owner's Manuals) [Paperback]

Oliver Lucanus (Author), Gary Elson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Barron's Complete Pet Owner's Manuals

Catfish gives advice to aquarium hobbyists as it describes the several varieties of bottom-dwelling fish that are native to many tropical and subtropical rivers. Titles in Barron’s wide-ranging and heavily illustrated selection of Complete Pet Owner’s Manuals present reliable and useful information for pet owners. High-quality photos are in color and line drawings are anatomically accurate. These fact-filled books instruct owners on how to care for dogs, cats, birds, fish, caged pets, reptiles, and virtually every other animal that people are likely to keep as a pet. Books in this series are written by breeders, trainers, veterinarians, and other pet-care specialists. They advise on purchasing, feeding, health care, training, grooming, and all other aspects of responsible pet ownership.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

[back cover]
Information and advice to help you take good care of your catfish

Typical catfish: varieties, life cycles, behavior patterns, and much more
Expert advice: feeding, health care, and maintaining your aquarium
Appreciating your catfish: observing and understanding their behavior

Advice on everyday care

Informative checklists and sidebars

Filled with attractive full-color photos

[photo caption]
The world of tropical catfish is an appealing one for the growing number of aquarium hobbyists discovering these fascinating species.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Barron's Educational Series (July 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764123971
• ISBN-13: 978-0764123979
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 6.6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,650,591 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #45 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Home & Garden > Animal Care & Pets > Fish & Aquariums

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A book that a mother would love., August 4, 2007

By 

Joseph Dewey (Orem, UT USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Catfish (Barron's Complete Pet Owner's Manuals) (Paperback)

A mother of one of the authors, I mean. Everyone else will be annoyed at this book.

The biggest gripe I have with this book is that it makes a big deal about how you should always refer to catfish by their Latin names. It explains in a hoity-toity way that it's really not being hoity-toity to do this, because it's just being pragmatic. It says that it's unreasonable to refer to catfish by their common names, because often a Latin name for a catfish can have two or three common names.

However, after all of that, the rest of the book mostly uses the common names for the catfish, using only the Latin names in the section headings. Except for the "L" catfish, which don't yet have Latin names. Sound boring? It is.

The book is poorly laid out, too. It would have been cool if the catfish pictures corresponded with the catfish that the page talked about. They didn't though.

And, this book talks a lot about the basics of aquarium setup. Like, it dedicates a few pages to choosing the correct filter for your aquarium.

This book looks like it's just a stock book about aquariums that got recycled for catfish. I kept trying to figure out if the writers actually knew anything about catfish, or if they just found a bunch of information from the internet and compiled it in this book. By about ten pages from the end, they finally said something in the book that convinced me that they knew a little, personally about catfish.

Overall, my advice is to choose any other book on catfish rather than this book. If you don't know anything about catfish, the Latin will be too inaccessible. If you know a lot about catfish, the basics of aquariums will be too simplistic.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A very basic beginners book., September 13, 2008

By 

J. W. Grundy (Somerset, Ky United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Catfish (Barron's Complete Pet Owner's Manuals) (Paperback)

Catfish (Complete Pet Owner's Manual) is the bare essentials to keeping a few of the myriad catfish species. It is an O.K. book but not very extensive in information on catfish. There are other, better, books on catfish that give one of the largest groups of fish the attention they deserve.